{"id":894260,"date":"2026-09-16T16:14:26","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:14:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/894260\/"},"modified":"2026-09-16T16:14:26","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T16:14:26","slug":"top-10-can-am-drivers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/894260\/","title":{"rendered":"Top 10 Can-Am drivers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The original Canadian-American Challenge Cup is largely remembered for its amazing, ground-shaking\u00a0sportscars. But the series also attracted some of the best drivers from around the world, partly thanks to the impressive prize money on offer.<\/p>\n

For this list of the top 10 Can-Am drivers of the 1966-74 period, we\u2019ve taken into account their performances, the opposition they faced, their level of success in the series (results scored elsewhere are not included) and their impact on Can-Am itself.<\/p>\n

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Watch: Top 10 Can-Am Drivers | Autosport Retro<\/p>\n

Nobody outside this list scored more than one victory, though we have included one non-winner. An honourable mention goes to Can-Am loyalist Lothar Motschenbacher, who was a consistent presence and contested both the first and last races of the era \u2013 he scored podiums but never a win.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Read Also:<\/p>\n

10. Jim Hall
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Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wins: 0
Poles: 2
Fastest laps: 3
Titles: 0<\/p>\n

Sixteen drivers won a Can-Am race in the championship\u2019s first era and Hall should have been among them. He did score six podiums and topped qualifying four times, but the cards never quite fell for the Texan.<\/p>\n

A trained engineer, Hall\u2019s impact on the championship went far beyond his efforts as a driver, his Chaparrals often bringing innovation. Sometimes his ideas were ahead of Formula 1, including high-mounted rear wings and fan cars, even if not all were perfect.<\/p>\n

Chaparral wasn\u2019t ready for the 1966 season opener, but Hall qualified fastest for round two at\u00a0Bridgehampton. Except, with team-mate Hill\u2019s 2E struck by problems in practice, Hall stepped aside and pole fell to Dan Gurney.<\/p>\n

At\u00a0Mosport Park, Hall was again fastest in practice but didn\u2019t start on pole due to an odd procedure that placed nine cars that had set times the day before (in the wet) ahead of him.<\/p>\n

Hall finally got his first official pole at\u00a0Laguna Seca and followed Hill home for a Chaparral 1-2 in heat one. He then led for much of heat two but it was Hill who took aggregate victory.<\/p>\n

Once Bruce\u00a0McLaren had gone out at Riverside, Hall battled John Surtees for the lead until fuel starvation set in and he had to settle for second. And Hall then took pole for the Stardust finale \u2013 0.9 seconds clear of his 1961 world championship-winning team-mate \u2013 only to pit early with spoiler trouble.<\/p>\n

Hall ran a revised 2E, dubbed the 2G, in 1967 and again finished fifth in the championship, but\u00a0McLaren had moved things on. Hall did nevertheless star against Bruce McLaren in a thrilling duel for victory at Riverside, falling just 3s short.<\/p>\n

Hall was part of a fine lead battle at\u00a0Bridgehampton in 1968, too, only to lose power, again finishing second. His final podium came at Riverside before a terrible clash with Motschenbacher at the Stardust finale, which put both in hospital. Hall, who had broken both legs, fractured his jaw and damaged a knee, was being pulled out when a fire broke out.<\/p>\n

Hall focused on his team thereafter but ended up quitting Can-Am completely once the 2J \u2018sucker car\u2019 was banned. He had nevertheless shown that he could live with the best drivers the series had to offer and brought more fresh thinking to Can-Am than any other.<\/p>\n

9. Jackie Stewart
\n \"\" <\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wins: 2
Poles: 2
Fastest laps: 2
Best championship: 3rd (1971)<\/p>\n

Compared to most on this list, Stewart\u2019s time in Can-Am was brief, but could anyone else have squeezed two wins out of the Lola T260 \u2013 a car the Scot has described as the worst of his career and Autosport reporter Gordon Kirby wrote had \u201clegendary power understeer\u201d \u2013 against the might of McLaren?<\/p>\n

Few had challenged the orange cars coming into 1971. Tony Dean\u2019s surprise success in a race of attrition at Road America in 1970 had been the only\u00a0non-McLaren win since 1967. But Stewart, who had briefly appeared in Can-Am before, immediately beat the factory M8Fs of Denny Hulme and Peter Revson to pole at the Mosport opener and led the way until the Lola\u2019s gearbox failed.<\/p>\n

The roles were reversed at\u00a0Mont-Tremblant, Mosport winner Hulme feeling ill and falling back as Stewart won. There was another pole at Watkins Glen (followed by a puncture and then vibration in the race) and a calculated, conservative second victory in Mid-Ohio on a punishing day when neither McLaren finished.<\/p>\n

The Lola sprouted an ungainly front wing later in the season as the Carl Haas team searched for front-end grip. Stewart remained the biggest threat to\u00a0McLaren and managed two more podiums but could not prevent Revson and Hulme finishing 1-2 in the drivers\u2019 standings.<\/p>\n

Stewart was initially slated to join\u00a0McLaren for 1972 but the deal fell through at the 11th hour, leaving Revson once more alongside Hulme and the reigning F1 world champion with just a brace of Can-Am successes.<\/p>\n

8. Dan Gurney\u00a0
\n \"\" <\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wins: 3
Poles: 5
Fastest laps: 3
Titles: 0<\/p>\n

Prior to 1970, Gurney suffered an unbelievably poor finishing record with Ford-powered\u00a0Lolas and McLarens in Can-Am and only scored one victory \u2013 at Bridgehampton during the inaugural season \u2013 despite invariably running at the sharp end and taking more poles than all but the top five on our list.<\/p>\n

Though being near the end of his career, Gurney was called up by\u00a0McLaren in the wake of Bruce McLaren\u2019s death in testing ahead of the 1970 Can-Am season. With team stalwart Hulme nursing hand injuries, Gurney stepped up, winning the opening two rounds from pole.<\/p>\n

Thereafter, sponsorship conflicts prevented Gurney running the full season. He then retired from driving but is one of the few to have scored Can-Am victories for different constructors, in his case Lola and\u00a0McLaren.<\/p>\n

7. Jackie Oliver
\n \"\" <\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wins: 4
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 4
Titles: 1 (1974)<\/p>\n

Oliver\u2019s four wins came in 1974, as the original Can-Am started to die, but he had been a\u00a0frontrunner since 1970. He\u2019d chased the pacesetting McLarens and scored podiums with the unusual Autocoast Titanium Ti22 \u2013 including a brilliant second just 1.2s behind Hulme at Laguna Seca in 1970 \u2013 and then Shadow.<\/p>\n

Oliver also worked through the development and reliability troubles of the early Shadows \u2013 he never finished more than three Can-Am races in a season prior to 1974! His patience was rewarded with Tony\u00a0Southgate\u2019s DN4, which arrived as Can-Am introduced a fuel formula to essentially outlaw the turbocharged Porsches.<\/p>\n

Shadow team-mate George\u00a0Follmer was more of a problem in 1974 than the results suggest, but Oliver still won all but one of the five rounds. That included coming out on top in the one visit from the (admittedly restricted) Porsche 917\/30 that had dominated the 1973 series.<\/p>\n

6. John Surtees
\n \"\" <\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wins: 4
Poles: 1
Fastest laps: 1
Title: 1966<\/p>\n

When\u00a0Surtees clinched the inaugural Can-Am title in November 1966, driving a Lola T70 run by his own team, he was one of the finest drivers in the world. Just three weeks earlier, he had won the Mexican Grand Prix and finished second in the F1 standings.<\/p>\n

Having won the\u00a0Mont-Tremblant opener from pole, Surtees suffered two car problems and an accident over the next three rounds \u2013 he almost left the series. But no one else could stamp their authority on the championship either, and victory at Riverside put him into a title fight with Mark Donohue, Bruce McLaren and Hill heading into the Stardust finale in Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

Surtees only qualified fourth but charged to the front at the start in a field that included Mario Andretti, Parnelli Jones and Stewart as well as the regulars. Despite slowing due to a vibration, Surtees beat McLaren and Donohue home to take the crown by six points.<\/p>\n

Victory at the same venue a year later ensured\u00a0Surtees finished third in the standings at the end of a campaign dominated by McLaren. Thereafter, the 1964 F1 world champion contested rounds in the 1969 Can-Am, driving for Chaparral, and invariably ran towards the front but he was not a fan of the radical 2H and struggled to make an impact.<\/p>\n

5. Peter\u00a0Revson
\n \"\" <\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wins: 5
Poles: 5
Fastest laps: 6
Titles: 1 (1971)<\/p>\n

Revson had been a frontrunner in Lola and McLaren machinery, even challenging the dominant M8Ds in 1970 in Haas\u2019s Lola T220, but had never quite scored a Can-Am victory when he was called up alongside Hulme in the works McLaren team for 1971.<\/p>\n

Despite opposition from Stewart in a Lola, Jo\u00a0Siffert\u2019s Porsche and even the occasional Ferrari, the M8Fs of Revson and Hulme battled for the crown. They often drove M8Fs to different specs so judging them was tough, as Autosport reporter Pete Lyons pointed out: \u201cIt is impossible to single out one occasion when Denny and Revvie were on the track at the same time with equal cars. They have never had a head-to-head driving match on equal terms. If one\u2019s engine was exactly right, the other\u2019s busy schedule had prevented him sorting his suspension, and so on.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hulme perhaps had the bigger share of McLaren\u2019s bad luck. In the end, Revson\u2019s five wins helped him defeat three-time winner Hulme by 10 points.<\/p>\n

Like\u00a0Hulme, Revson put up a fine rearguard action against the turbocharged Porsche onslaught in McLaren\u2019s M20 in 1972, taking a stunning pole at Watkins Glen. It was the Kiwi rather than Revson who managed a couple of wins before the Porsche 917\/10 really got up to speed but there were still three podiums in the American\u2019s final Can-Am campaign.<\/p>\n

4. George Follmer
\n \"\" <\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wins: 6
Poles: 6
Fastest laps: 7
Titles: 1 (1972)<\/p>\n

Follmer may have been fortunate to inherit the Penske-run Porsche 917\/10 for 1972 following Donohue\u2019s massive Road Atlanta accident, but his was not an easy gig. Donohue had done the development on the laggy turbocar, which remained a tricky machine and required a lot of adapting from the driver to deliver its best.<\/p>\n

Despite the late start, missing the opening round and tough opposition from the hitherto dominant\u00a0McLaren team, Follmer managed three poles and five wins on his way to the crown, becoming the first non-McLaren driver to take the title since 1966.<\/p>\n

\u201cGeorge had mastered a difficult car and a raw shotgun of an engine,\u201d said Peter Morgan in his book, Porsche 917: The winning formula. \u201cHe had confirmed he had been the right choice for the job that needed to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n

Follmer drove the same 917\/10 for Bobby Rinzler in 1973 and scored another victory on his way to second in the points, but he was no match for Donohue in Penske\u2019s remarkable 917\/30.<\/p>\n

Follmer then lined up alongside Oliver at Shadow for the final, weak season of Can-Am\u2019s first era. Oliver\u2019s record of four wins from five races belies the needle that sometimes existed between the pair and the unlucky Follmer\u2019s pace \u2013 he scored three poles to Oliver\u2019s one.<\/p>\n

Unlike most of the drivers on this list, Follmer also appeared in Can-Am\u2019s second era, winning at Mont-Tremblant in 1978, though that\u2019s not counted in our stats above.<\/p>\n

3. Bruce McLaren
\n \"\" <\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wins: 9
Poles: 13
Fastest laps: 7
Titles: 2 (1967, 1969)<\/p>\n

Few individuals had a bigger impact on Can-Am. Bruce\u00a0McLaren\u2019s eponymous team was the category\u2019s benchmark, reeling off five consecutive drivers\u2019 crowns, and the Kiwi took two titles himself before his untimely death testing an M8D at Goodwood in June 1970.<\/p>\n

Assessing\u00a0McLaren\u2019s pace relative to team-mate Hulme is tricky because they often indulged in team orders, taking it in turns to hit the front or \u2018playing to the crowd\u2019. Across their three seasons together, McLaren was fractionally ahead in qualifying, though Hulme tended to have an edge when it came to racing.<\/p>\n

Either could have won the 1967 title. In the Stardust finale,\u00a0Hulme lost a lap early on with a puncture while McLaren retired after an oil leak. Hulme charged back and was on course to take the title, only for his engine to fail, handing success to his team boss by three points.<\/p>\n

Hulme won the 1968 crown with three wins to McLaren\u2019s one and in 1969 the M8Bs were so far ahead of the opposition the team could pretty much decide who would win each round.<\/p>\n

For the Texas finale \u2013 with the two each on five victories but with Hulme ahead on points \u2013 the plan was for McLaren to win and Hulme clinch the title. Hulme took pole, fought off an early challenge from Mario Andretti and then duly backed off to allow Bruce ahead. So far so good, until Hulme\u2019s engine blew 11 laps from home and McLaren took an unexpected second crown by five points.<\/p>\n

That was Bruce\u00a0McLaren\u2019s last Can-Am race. His squad remained the team to beat after his death, but he had more than made his mark as a driver, too. Across his four seasons in the championship, McLaren finished third, first, second and first in the drivers\u2019 standings.<\/p>\n

2. Mark\u00a0Donohue
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Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wins: 9
Poles: 11
Fastest laps: 9
Titles: 1 (1973)<\/p>\n

Not only did Donohue ultimately match Bruce McLaren\u2019s win tally, it could be argued his impact was even greater. While Bruce\u2019s team dominated Can-Am for five seasons, it was Donohue\u2019s personal efforts with Porsche and Penske that got the turbocharged 917 to work \u2013 not only did that end McLaren\u2019s supremacy and then its participation, the programme ultimately changed Can-Am forever.<\/p>\n

Donohue won Can-Am races with three different constructors despite always being with Penske. His first victory came during the inaugural season in a Lola T70 and he took a second success in a McLaren M6B at Bridgehampton in 1968 before the Porsche project came along.<\/p>\n

Porsche had huge problems getting its early turbocharged engine to work and Donohue spent a lot of time at Weissach with the engineers until solutions were found just in time for the start of the 1972 season.<\/p>\n

Donohue finished second to Hulme\u2019s McLaren M20 in the Mosport opener but suffered an enormous crash testing at Road Atlanta when the rear bodywork flew off. That meant he missed four races and had to watch as Follmer set about ending McLaren\u2019s domination of Can-Am.<\/p>\n

By the time\u00a0Donohue returned, Follmer was understandably the focus on his way to the title, but Penske\u2019s star still won at Edmonton and finished in the top four of the final points for the fourth time.<\/p>\n

It finally all came together in 1973 with the 917\/30, a refined and more powerful version of Porsche\u2019s turbocar. After an unfortunate start \u2013 a backmarker clash at Mosport and fuel union failure at Road Atlanta \u2013 Donohue reeled off six consecutive victories to win the eight-round series with more than twice the points of second-placed Follmer.<\/p>\n

He was never beaten to pole during 1973. Yes,\u00a0Donohue had a big car advantage but he had been instrumental in making that happen \u2013 and then obliterated the opposition. Given all his toil, the title was no more than Donohue deserved.<\/p>\n

He announced his (sadly, temporary) retirement at the end of 1973, leaving Kirby to write that\u00a0Donohue\u2019s final campaign had been \u201ca season in which his talents as a driver, an engineer and a craftsman were orchestrated into the racing of the most perfect machine that a man could hope for\u201d.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Penske Perfectionist could only really be beaten in this list by the King of Can-Am\u2026<\/p>\n

1. Denny\u00a0Hulme
\n \"\" <\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

Wins: 22
Poles: 22
Fastest laps: 26
Titles: 2 (1968, 1970)<\/p>\n

Was Hulme the greatest talent to race in Can-Am? No. But he scored more than twice as many wins as anyone else, took the most poles and his sheer relentless presence for six years at the front of the field means he has to be number one.<\/p>\n

From his arrival in 1967 until\u00a0McLaren\u2019s withdrawal at the end of 1972, Hulme started 52 Can-Am races and finished on the podium in two-thirds of them, winning 22 times. He also set fastest lap in half his appearances and never finished lower than second in the drivers\u2019 table!<\/p>\n

Yes, he drove for\u00a0McLaren, which was the dominant force for all but one of those seasons, but Hulme repeatedly proved his worth and seemed at home in the big banger sportscars. Although in qualifying Bruce McLaren could often match or better his fellow Kiwi, Hulme usually had the race pace when he needed it.<\/p>\n

Hulme was unlucky to lose both the 1967 and 1969 titles at the final round, and did win in 1968 and 1970. The latter was particularly noteworthy as he helped pick up the team after Bruce\u2019s death and had to start the season still suffering with hand injuries from an Indianapolis accident.<\/p>\n

Six wins from 10 rounds helped him to more than twice the score of second-placed\u00a0Motschenbacher and it was often Hulme who raised his game in an attempt to match the pace of the Chaparral 2J fan car. \u201cYes, Can-Am lap times come down to that, Denny Hulme versus Chaparral,\u201d wrote Lyons in Autosport\u2019s Riverside report.<\/p>\n

Hulme did lose out to new team-mate Revson in 1971 in an up-and-down campaign, but it was the 1967 F1 world champion who scored McLaren\u2019s final two series wins in 1972 against the Porsche steamroller before the team withdrew and Hulme\u2019s time at the top of Can-Am finally came to an end.<\/p>\n

\"\" <\/p>\n

Photo by: Getty Images<\/p>\n

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– The Autosport.com Team<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The original Canadian-American Challenge Cup is largely remembered for its amazing, ground-shaking\u00a0sportscars. But the series also attracted some…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":894261,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[572],"tags":[64,63,1325,806,805,803,804,85,463495],"class_list":["post-894260","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-motosport","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-general","tag-motor","tag-motor-sports","tag-motosport","tag-motosports","tag-sports","tag-top-10-can-am-drivers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894260","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=894260"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/894260\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/894261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=894260"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=894260"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=894260"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}